In this week’s Torah portion, Vayetzey, Jacob runs away from his brother Esav who wants to kill him for taking the blessing.   He goes toward Charan, the home of his uncle Lavan.  Then, “Vayifga b’makom,”- Jacob “bumped into the place.”  The Rabbis comment that this was indeed “the place” -Mount Moriyah- the place Abraham had brought Isaac as an offering and the future home of the King David’s Temple.

Jacob’s relationship to the place and his trip there are very different from his grandfather’s.  Abraham’s trip was planned.  He left early in the morning, he brought wood and fire, and people with him, and went to the place that God had told him.   He saw the place from far away, set his path there and ascended the mountain.   Abraham named the place “Adoni Yereh,” “God is Seen.”

In contrast, Jacob’s trip is spur of the moment.  He is alone, he can not prepare and does not see the place from afar- quite the opposite- he literally trips over it.  He stops there in the place to sleep because it is dark but does not yet know the significance of the place, he has not yet “seen” it.  He wakes to realize, “Surely God was in this place and I did not know it….this is no other than the house of God and the Gate of Heaven.”   

Perhaps these two ways of relating to the trip and the mountain are not just the product of Abraham’s trip being commanded and Jacob’s being a last resort, but also a reflection of who they both are, their different ages and stages of life.  Abraham is mature and Jacob is young.

Over the course of Jacob’s life he revisits this place again and renames it: “Thus Jacob came to Luz—that is, Bethel—in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him.  There he built an altar and named the site El-Bethel, for it was there that God had been revealed to him when he was fleeing from his brother (Genesis 35:6-7).”

Why later in his life does he append God’s name to the name of the place?  Between the two episodes Jacob has been through a lot.  Many years of servitude, having to become someone he is not- a deceiver, a worker, a rich man, a man whose daughter is raped, whose sons slaughter a whole city’s inhabitants in revenge, a man who is accused by his father in law and has to contend with his brother who had wanted to kill him- a complex man.  He returns to the place of his wonder, his spontaneity, his youthful presence but now he renames the place, appending the name of God to it.   He is no longer surprised by the Divine presence.  Like his grandfather, he knows what’s coming around the bend before he gets there.   He has matured through his suffering.  With maturity wisdom is gained, but amazement (Wow, this is the House of God and I did not know it) is lost.  

The same will happen to his own son Joseph.   Joseph is youthful, he brags, does not understand that his brothers will be jealous.  He is a child, naive and starry eyed,  an idealist like all healthy children.   When does he become wise?  In prison.  Prison and servitude matures him.  Something is lost, but something also is gained.  He now becomes the Joseph who interprets dreams, who can see the future and plan for it.  

Ultimately “The Place” becomes that of King David- Sukkat David.  King David is the one who is able to retain both elements, the mature and the youthful.  He becomes king, suffers, sins, learns to govern, but retains his spontaneity for God, dancing almost naked before the ark, out of spiritual joy (2 Samuel 6:14):   “David whirled with all his might before the Lord; David was girt with a linen ephod.  Thus David and all the House of Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord with shouts and with blasts of the horn.  As the Ark of the Lord entered the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord; and she despised him for it.”

To live a full spiritual life we, like David, need both maturity and youthfulness, vision and spontaneity, wisdom and amazement.